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Saturday, January 22, 2011

Hi guys, so holidays are gone and hopefully I'll have more time to write on this blog. Many of you e-mailed me about recipe for pogacha (pogaca, погача), which I assume that is the sweet version you're looking for. Well, I have three different recipes for sweet version of pogacha, so you can choose which one you want to make. This is the first version:

If you're using frozen yeast cube, warm the milk a little bit, dissolve the yeast into it and then add and dissolve the sugar in it. If you use package of dry yeast, the milk can be cold, just dissolve the sugar and yeast in it. Sift the flour, mix the pinch of salt in it and then add the milk with the dissolved sugar and yeast, the yogurt and oil. In a bowl crack one egg, and from the second one just add the egg white. Keep the yolk for egg paint. Beat the egg and egg white and add them to the flour and other ingredients. Mix everything until it's soft and smooth dough (add water if it's too hard or flour if it's too soft). Knead the dough until smooth, shape it into ball, and leave it to rest until the size of it has doubled (approximately 1 hour in warm place). When the dough has raised, roll it into rectangle and spread 1/3 of the butter on top of it. Overlap the dough one half on the other (like you're closing a book). Spread the second 1/3 of the butter and overlap again. Then spread again and overlap again. Roll the dough in 2 cm thickness and cut it into equal pieces (cubes). Shape each piece into ball (the size should be like golf ball) and into place it in the center of a greased round baking pan. Shape the other pieces into balls and arrange them to the center piece so you'll have flower shape. Keep arranging the dough balls until you use all dough. Add 1 tablespoon of water into the egg yolk and beat it well. Spread the egg paint onto the pogacha and sprinkle it with little bit of sugar. Leave the pogacha to rest for 10 minutes (until the oven is heated). Heat the oven to 200 degrees C and bake the pogacha for 10 minutes. Lower the heat to 180 degrees C and bake for 20-25 min more (until the sides of the pogacha are brownish). When the pogacha is baked, take it out of the oven and cover it firs with some clean thick plastic bag (the plastic foil might melt), and on top of the bag place a kitchen towel. Leave it to cool like this. Then you just break pieces of it and eat:-)